Technically, they did make Dreaming out Loud, but that one was taken up by too many newcomers and wasn't true to the Lum and Abner stories.

In this movie, we get to see Squire Skimp and Cedric Weehunt.

This movie reuses several plots from the 1935 radio episodes such as the phony glasses and the phony kidnapping.

Are there some rough spots? Yeah, the ending had some plausibility issues. But at the end of the day, it's Lum and Abner at the movies. A real pleasure.

...But then isn't everything? Seriously, I found myself liking this movie because it was so corny. It gives an idea of what life must have been like back then, in what we think were more innocent times. We're luckier than our grandfathers. We got the past captured on film. They could only read about it.

I had to laugh at those who think that people were starved for entertainment in 1942! Oh my DEAR Henry!!!!!!
Have you never heard of...
"CASABLANCA"????
"THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER"????
"MRS. MINIVER"????
"NOW VOYAGER"????
"PRIDE OF THE YANKEES"????
"ROAD TO MOROCCO"????
"SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS"????
"WOMAN OF THE YEAR"????
"YANKEE DOODLE DANDY"????

And this is just a few of the many, many great movies from that era...

They had radio shows that were fantastic! One of which was "Lum and Abner". There are lots of those old radio shows here on the Archive.. try them sometime. You will be pleasantly surprised at the quality of entertainment available.

The music of that era is wonderful:
"A Night in Tunisia"
"That Old Black Magic"
"White Christmas"
Glenn Miller's Orchestra playing "String of Pearls"
Jimmy Dorsey's Orchestra playing "Tangerine"
Woody Herman's Orchestra playing "Blues in the Night"

There is a lot more, but I don't have time...

They were not starved for entertainment... they wallowed in it.

Lum & Abner - the very names bespeak of rural ignorance. The country was broke. The financial depression. No one had any money.... save a very few. A middle class family had a full time maid. Papa worked & momma stayed at the house to make it a home. Children died - often - weakened by near starvation and as yet unconquered diseases. Everyone was poor and few were educated beyond 7th grade. So why were these bumpkins so popular that like Amos & Andy that they were broadcast every day? They had a commonality with the masses that paid their nickle to have an hour's distraction from the disappointing - now. The misunderstandings among Lum & company could be easily forgiven amid the mix of honesty, virtue, comedy, and really worthy values. Pain and horror weren't entertainments to the citizens of the depression; they were constant companions.... and a little non-sense from Lum & Abner made an acceptable albiet temporary balm. Noah 8-?

To the person who dissed Lum and Abner and claimed "America must have been starved" for entertainment. My friend you are the one that is STARVED for entertainment. If being "starved" means watching all the sex, violence and plain meaness than goes on in todays "entertainment" then by all means we need to be STARVED again. I can't even watch prime time tv with my 5 and 8 year old daughters without explaining sexual inuendos, cuss words and the list goes on and on. So bring on LUM AND ABNER...and for christs sake lets all get "Starved for entertainment" again.

Watch all the Lum and Abner films so you'll know a tiny slice of entertainment from the radio days. Why not, it's free, and people used to like it enough to make movies about it.

Treasure these movies. While the Radio shows were far and away better these movies gave America a chance to see "The Boys". Heavy Makeup was needed to transform the Stars from 30 somethings into the 60'ish Lum and Abner. At the Time this movie was made it was The Brink of WW2 and Americans needed diversion.

The old Lum and Abner radio show was re-broadcast on a local station a few years ago as a short-lived novelty. The show was pretty funny. Each episode was shorter than a half-hour.

This movie has less stuff happening than any one episode of the radio program, and what does happen isn't true to the mood of the original show. Slow and stinky.

Lum and Abner were a radio duo popular during the 30ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs and 40ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs. Their success led them to make a series of movies featuring their characters (Chester Lauk plays Lum and Norris Goff plays Abner). Now, I have never heard their radio program, so I canÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂt vouch on the quality of the show, but if the Bashful Bachelor is any comparison, then my God, America was REALLY starved for entertainment back then.

Lum and Abner run a general merchandise store in a town, AbnerÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs trading addiction somehow gets him a horse which they train for the local horse competition (which a nasty businessman has also a horse in). ThereÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs also a plot of Lum trying to woo a local lady in town by trying to be a hero, some bit about glasses, cans keep getting falling down and so on.

ItÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs plain to see that this is one jumbled mess, Some plots dissapear for a while, making us wonder what happened to them, and this is totally unnessarily longer then it needs to be (which tells me that they padded this story heavily.. why? WHY??)